M106 Competition designs for Paisley Technical School

John Honeyman & Keppie entered two designs in the Paisley Technical
School competition. They were placed second and third. The design placed second
was a symmetrical Scots-Renaissance-style
building with striking central apsidal feature,
embellished with a figurative relief frieze; elaborate 16th–17th-century
style Scottish doorways on the wings; and a corbelledstring-course.
A perspective of it, drawn by Thomas Raffles Davison, was published in the British
Architect in May 1896 and exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 1897 and the Royal
Scottish Academy in 1898. No images of the design which came third are known.

This was not the only competition in which John Honeyman & Keppie
submitted more than one design. For the Glasgow Art Galleries competition the
firm submitted three designs: one in the Ionic order; another with towers; and a third with a dome. Two designs were submitted in both the
National Bank of Scotland and
Liverpool Cathedral competitions.

Authorship: The authorship of the design, known only from
Raffles Davison's perspective, is unclear. The combination of conventional
historical and abstract details suggest that John Keppie and Mackintosh may have
collaborated on it.

Status: Unbuilt

'Mackintosh Architecture' led by The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; with additional support from The Monument Trust, The Pilgrim Trust, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art; and collaborative input from Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.